Business of the House Debate

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Department: Leader of the House

Business of the House

David T C Davies Excerpts
Thursday 9th March 2017

(7 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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David Lidington Portrait Mr Lidington
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It is right that we should have a public memorial to those, both military and civilian, who served so valiantly in Afghanistan and Iraq, and also that we should learn the lessons from both those conflicts. The forthcoming debate on the Select Committee report on the Chilcot inquiry will clearly relate primarily to Iraq, but I would have thought that the lessons to be learned from that conflict and the Afghanistan conflict could be debated during that time.

David T C Davies Portrait David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
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May we have a debate on the efficiency with which we prosecute white collar crime? We are very good at chasing benefit cheats, and rightly so, but I do not believe that we are doing enough to investigate what my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) calls the sharp-suited spivs who get away with misappropriating millions of pounds, sometimes involving public money.

David Lidington Portrait Mr Lidington
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I can assure my hon. Friend that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which is an independent prosecuting authority, takes this matter very seriously and has secured a big increase in the amount of money recovered for the Treasury through compliance activities, but I am sure that there is always more to be done.